Page 38 of Dragons' Future

I grip the egg with my hands, as if I might hold it together. My heart races. This isn’t a place a hatchling should be born in. Hell, this isn’t a place any living being should be in at all. And even if it were, I’m the last person who knows what to do with a baby dragon. “Stop. Don’t come out any further, alright?” I beg.

The air fills with the sound of the shell fracturing, sharp and crisp. A small, snout-shaped bulge presses against the inside of the egg, stretching the crack wider. With a sudden burst, a piece of the shell falls away, revealing a glistening, damp snout. The hatchling’s nostrils flare, tasting its first breath of air.

I press my hand to my mouth.

Oblivious of my panic, the hatchling pushes the rest of its head toward freedom. Its eyes, closed and fragile, are barely visible beneath translucent eyelids. Another push, and a tiny clawed foot emerges, scrabbling against the remnants of its former home.

I twist around the chamber desperately. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I hope I’ll recognize a necessity if I see it. Human babies need things when they are born. Blankets. Towels. Milk. What in the ever loving world does a little dragon require? Does anyone even know? So far as my mates have explained—not that we discussed it much—human women birthed shifters in their fae form. Eggs haven’t been seen for as far back as dames.

Which means that not only am I completely unqualified for what’s happening, but so is everyone else. Which is not stopping this hatching from moving forward.

The hatchling’s struggles grow more vigorous, its body wriggling and squirming with newfound freedom.

A soft, encouraging growl comes from somewhere inside me. Which is so not helpful. And yet I hear myself growl again, this time with swelling pride as the hatchling finally breaks free, its tiny, wet body collapsing into my lap. Its scales are a brilliant shade of emerald, shimmering with vitality. It's… it’s the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And the most fragile.

I rip off a swath of material from my skirt, wrapping it around the little warm body. It lets out a little satisfied chirp in declaration of victory, burrows into the cloth, and promptly falls asleep—leaving me in a state of utter terror.

I'm sitting in the same position on the floor, the hatchling’s rhythmic breathing the only sound in the silent chamber, when the heavy door opens with its tell tale creak. I instinctively pull the hatchling closer, trying to shield it with my body.

“I have brought an incentive,” Emric says as he strides in, his midnight blue robes swirling with patterns of gold embroidery and speckled with blood. A whip hangs on his rope-woven sash, right alongside a glistening fish scaler. A fish scaler. A flick of the priest’s hand, and the magic imbued in the bands on Cyril’s wrists yank him forward.

Just like before, Emric stretches Cyril’s arms so high above his head, that his toes barely touch the floor. His shoulders are wrenched painfully, and I’m not sure they are not going to dislocate soon. His breathing is heavy and the places where Emric had cut off his scales still bleed despite the passage of time. Of course. The bands’ magic has taken Cyril’s magic, and his ability to heal with it.

Wyrmwood for the bands and the wood making up the eggs’ crate, and wyrm’s bane for the poison that killed Ettienne. I’m following the deadly pattern of ingredients.

Still, as Cyril lifts his head to look at me, the emotion flowing first and foremost through our bond is reassurance. Love. And then panic as he marks what I hold in my arms.

Emric’s calculating gaze goes to the untouched crate first, his jaw tightening. He scans the rest of the room coolly, and only then condescends to focus on me. I know the moment he sees the truth because his forever controlled face contorts in unbridled fury.

“What have you done?” he roars, his lip curling into a snarl, his skin darkening beneath his tattooed constellations. “What have you done?”

CHAPTER 22

Cyril

“What have you done?” the priest roared, losing control for the first time since Cyril met him. “What have you done?”

Staring at the hatchling Kit now protected with her body, Cyril had a similar question. What the bloody hell happened? How? Why? Why now? Yes along with the two thousands questions and expletives Cyril longed to shout to both his mate and the universe, came another unexpected torrent of emotion.

That was a new life in his mate’s arms. A perfect, precious little dragon who Cyril already loved unequivocally on a level that was primal rather than rational. A hatchling. Kit’s hatchling. Their hatchling. It was no matter that the egg hadn’t come from Kit’s body, it was connected to her soul. That made it hers. Theirs. A responsibility that made the sigil on Cyril’s finger feel feather light in comparison.

Cyril loved the pup. And he hated that it had hatched here, in this hell hole.

“You’ve cost me an egg, you scaled cunt.” Spittle flew from Emric’s mouth, his hand shaking in fury as he reached for the whip at his hip. Cyril strained against the wyrmwood manacles holding his arms pinned high in the air.

Kit’s pupils elongated, her scales flaring in shades of deep red that anyone with half a brain knew to be cautious of. Cyril stared at her, the bond between them vibrating with energy.

“You think this a game? Even your mother had known better. Had understood. But you, you think you can toy with me? That my patience has no limits?”

“Back away,” Kit’s voice came as a growl Cyril hadn’t heard before. Not that way. Just as Kit’s pupils no longer resembled that of a fae. He froze. His pain forgotten.

“You think you’ve gotten one over on me?” Emric shouted, pointing at the hatchling. “No. No, what you’ve done is sentenced this abomination to be flayed alive.”

No! Cyril wrenched his body against the unforgiving shackles. The antidote he’d drunk, his father’s final gift to him, filled his veins. But the antidote was made for the wyrm’s bane poison, not wyrmwood shackles. It helped, but it wasn’t enough.

The priest’s whip snapped forward toward the hatchling.

The crack that split the air in the next instant was not from the lash. As Emric’s whip sped toward the hatchling, a surge of raw magic erupted from Kit. Her body convulsed, expanding rapidly, reshaping into the grand and formidable creature the world had not seen until now. The scales along her back shimmered in a cascade of iridescent colors, reflecting the dim light into a spectrum across the chamber walls.

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